Climates during the Spread of Farming in the Mediterranean

Thomas Huet

University of Oxford

Niccolò Mazzucco

Università di Pisa

with the collaboration of Andrea Manica

University of Cambridge

Introduction

Late Foragers and Early Farmers


Late Mesolithic (LM)1


Early Neolithic (EN)2

Framework

Neonet project

Early Mesolithic (EM)
Middle Mesolithic (MM)
Late Mesolithic (LM)
Early Neolithic (EN)
Middle Neolithic (MN)
Late Neolithic (LN)


Baume de Montclus, stacked SPD


Franchthi cave, stacked SPD

source("R/neo_spd.R")
source("R/neo_spdplot.R")

neo_spd(df.c14 = df.c14)

  • Open Data, Open Source, Open Access
  • Scalable, Incrementable, Reusable, Analyzable

Materials and Methods

Radiocarbon data

Brami, M.N. A graphical simulation of the 2,000-year lag in Neolithic occupation between Central Anatolia and the Aegean basin. Archaeol Anthropol Sci 7, 319–327 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12520-014-0193-4

ref_table_per.xlsx

EM - Early Mesolithic
MM - Middle Mesolithic
LM - Late Mesolithic
EN - Early Neolithic
MN - Middle Neolithic
LN - Late Neolithic

c14_aberrant_dates.tsv

Radiocarbon dataset

Climates data and model

Mean annual temperature (ºC)

Annual precipitation (mm year -1)

Biome (pollen-based)

Beyer et al. 20203


https://github.com/EvolEcolGroup/pastclim

A <- Thot >= 18 & !B
Af <- A & Pdry >= 60
Am <- A & !Af & Pdry >= 100 - MAP / 25
Aw <- A & !Af & Pdry < 100 - MAP / 25

function pastclim::koeppen_geiger()

code climate colors
A* Tropical #0000FF #0078FF #46AAF
B* Arid #FF0000 #FF9696 #F5A500 #FFDC64
C* Temperate #FFFF00 #C8C800 #969600 #96FF96 #64C864 #329632 #C8FF50 #64FF50 #32C800
D* Cold #FF00FF #C800C8 #963296 #966496 #AAAF #5A78DC #4B50B4 #320087 #00FFFF #37C8FF #007D7D #00465F
E* Polar #B2B2B2 #666666

function neoent::neo_kss_create()

Modelling dates

Most recent LM and most ancient EN date weighted medians (w-mendian) by site

Spread of Neolithic in the Mediterranean

Near East (9,000 BC)

  • Neolithic mostly on Csa (Temperate, dry summer, hot summer) and BSk (Temperate, dry summer, warm summer) climates
  • North and South Levant farmers separated byDsa (Cold, dry summer, hot summer) climates: Mount Lebanon mountain range.
  • Cyprus early settlement: Klimonas (idf 51).

Near East (8,500 BC)

  • Small changes in the estimated area with Neolithic economy
  • Southward: new neolithic occupation in a BWh climate (Arid, desert, hot): Shkarat Msaied (idf 78).

Near East (8,000 BC)

  • Mount Lebanon range (Dsa) still existing as a frontier between North Levant and South Levant Neolithic
  • Central Anatolia Plateau (BSk) with new sites: Asikli Höyük (idf 10), Kaletepe (idf 50) and Pinarbasi A (idf 69)

Near East (7,500 BC)

  • Only one new occupation on the Central Anatolian Plateau, Musular (id 64): barrier
  • In Southern Levant, close concentration of occupations in different climates, Csa, BSk, BWh and newly BSh (Arid, steppe, hot)
  • BSh sites: Nahal Efe (id 65), Hemar (id 42)

Central Anatolian barrier

Aegean (6,600 BC)

  • Aegean Sea and Aegean shore are ‘neolithised’ before Northern Anatolia, and even before South central Anatolia.
  • Earliest neolithic sites are those having pre-neolithic (i.e. Mesolithic) obsidian coming from Melos: Maroulas (idf 27), Franchthi (idf 17) and Cyclops Cave (idf 11), no climate data available.
  • Confirms: Brami 20154.

Aegean (6,200 BC)

  • In Greece, Thessaly and Macedonia, dense settlements in BSk climates (Sesklo, Paliambela, Anzabegovo, etc. )
  • First Neolithic in Northern Aegean (Ugurlu, idf 44) related to first Neolithic in Northwestern Anatolia: Barcin (idf 9), Aktopraklik (idf 2)
  • The Neolithic pioneer front seems to slow down in Western Greece (ridge line, river basins), exception: Sidari (idf 42) and Northern Greece.
  • New climate: Cfa (Temperate, no dry season, hot summer). Sites: Mavropigi (idf 19), Lefkopetra (idf 28), Ofeas (idf 32)

Aegean (5,800 BC)

  • Rapid expansion in the Southern Balkans (Csa and BSk).
  • Northern Balkans expansion required adapting agriculture and stockbreeding systems to colder climates (Dfa, Dfb)
  • Slowdown of Neolithic expansion. Early northern occupations, such as Porodin (idf 26).
  • South of Italy (off the map) is reached, probably from Corfu: Sidari (idf 40)
  • Confirms: Krauß et al. 20185, Ivanova et al. 20186.

Western Mediterranean (in BC)

End of the Mediterranean Neolithisation

Climates evolution

Discussion

Climates occupied by the Early Farmers

Thank you

https://github.com/zoometh/neonet

Footnotes

  1. Late Foragers. Create an image in a portrait layout of: A Mediterranean coastal area, view from distance (bird eye), during the Late Mesolithic, with a temperate to cold and humid climate, showing an estuary river banks and a part of a marsh. The dominant colors in the image should be cool tones, such as blues and green, and the people should be dressed in furs suitable for cold to temperate climates (Koppen climate classes: Cfb and Dfa). Include only 5 characters: A women collecting sea shells and collecting fruits and wild seeds in cane baskets. A children collecting wild seeds in cane baskets. A man fishing with a vegetal net. A woman hunting ducks with a bow. A man skinning a fish. Include only these items: A vegetal net An arrow. Living wild animals should be distant from humans. The characters and animals in the image must be realistic. The faces of the people should be well-defined. The tools should be made of wood, flints and bones only. The image should have: No domestic animals. No ceramic potteries. No glass. No candle or wood fire. Do not include anything that I didn’t described

  2. Early Farmers. The scene depicts a Mediterranean landscape set in a river valley of the inland Iberian Peninsula during the Neolithic period. The environment reflects the typical Mediterranean vegetation, including holm oaks, oak trees, and shrubs. The landscape shows a mosaic of forests and small cereal fields, with more emphasis on the dense forest. In the foreground, a group of five people is working in the fields, harvesting wheat using wooden and flint sickles. The group consists of three men and two women, all dressed in prehistoric brown wool and linen garments, appropriate for the period. In the background, there is a small flock of black goats and brown sheep, which are being watched over by an elderly woman and a child, both holding wooden staffs. The animals are enclosed within a small wooden pen located far from the cereal fields prompt@ChatGPT.

  3. Beyer, R. M., Krapp, M., & Manica, A. (2020). High-resolution terrestrial climate, bioclimate and vegetation for the last 120,000 years. Scientific data, 7(1), 236.

  4. Brami, M. N. (2015). A graphical simulation of the 2,000-year lag in Neolithic occupation between Central Anatolia and the Aegean basin. Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences, 7, 319-327.

  5. Krauß, R., Marinova, E., De Brue, H., & Weninger, B. (2018). The rapid spread of early farming from the Aegean into the Balkans via the Sub-Mediterranean-Aegean Vegetation Zone. Quaternary International, 496, 24-41. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quaint.2017.01.019

  6. Ivanova, M., De Cupere, B., Ethier, J., & Marinova, E. (2018). Pioneer farming in southeast Europe during the early sixth millennium BC: Climate-related adaptations in the exploitation of plants and animals. PLoS One, 13(5), e0197225. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0197225

  7. Ammerman, A. J., & Cavalli-Sforza, L. L. (1971)[^2]. Measuring the rate of spread of early farming in Europe. Man, 674-688.

  8. Fort, J. (2022). The spread of agriculture: quantitative laws in prehistory?. In Simulating Transitions to Agriculture in Prehistory (pp. 17-28). Cham: Springer International Publishing.

  9. Betti, L., Beyer, R. M., Jones, E. R., Eriksson, A., Tassi, F., Siska, V., … & Manica, A. (2020). Climate shaped how Neolithic farmers and European hunter-gatherers interacted after a major slowdown from 6,100 BCE to 4,500 BCE. Nature Human Behaviour, 4(10), 1004-1010.

  10. Binder, D., Angeli, L., Gomart, L., Huet, T., Maggi, R., Manen, C., … & Tagliacozzo, A. (2019, March). L’Impresso-cardial du nord-ouest et ses rapports avec la «zone-source»: une synthèse chrono-culturelle. In Céramiques imprimées de Méditerranée occidentale. Matières premières, productions, usages.